A SMALL crowd of civil society groups advocating for the rights of the Marshalltown fire victims who have since been displaced are calling for justice.
Among many things the groups are demanding are that all those affected by the tragic fire at Usindiso Shelter in August be given the necessary support to attend the commission without additional strain
This comes as the groups picketed outside the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown, Joburg, where the Commission of Inquiry into the Usindiso Building fire will resume on Tuesday, 5 December.
“We have already heard accounts of inhuman treatment of fire victims with official segregating them based on nationality, arresting and extorting residents for lack of documents despite the fact that many of them, including South Africans, lost their documents in the fire.
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“Government officials and commissioners should not be inflaming tensions on social media but should instead focus on the humanity of those who lost their lives, those who are mourning their families, friends and neighbours, and those who lost their belongings and are having to rebuild their lives from scratch,” Maonica Hassamo from Inner City Resource Centre said.
The inquiry into the cause of the fire in the five-storey Usindiso building in the Joburg CBD, chaired by retired Constitutional Court Judge Sisi Khampepe in Parktown, Joburg is aimed at looking into the fire that took the lives of 77 people while injuring 60 more and leaving many homeless.
To this day, some victims were recently taken to emergency shelters in the Denver informal settlement near Jeppestown.
Although the victims have a roof over their heads, their living conditions are reportedly poor.
The city has since been given three months to upgrade these conditions.
